When I set out on this journey, I knew I would need to face a few home truths. My weight, my lifestyle, my training and a decade of neglect. I also knew that the day would come when I would have to face some of my deepest self...
And here we are.
If you read my last post you'll know that I started to ask some big questions of myself. 'Was I the issue getting in my own way?', 'Is it me that is inadvertently causing myself pain?'.
After putting that post together last week I had a hard time. I had a very hard time with an awful lot of dense, dark, much coming up attached to this most recent setback and loss. I'm the person who you expect to have all the answers. I'm the one whom people seek my council. I'm the rock in the storm when the shit hits the fan.
But last week the shit hit the fan for me, and in a big way mentally and emotionally. It has forced me to confront and realise so many things about why this keeps happening and what am I doing that perpetuates it.
We all have Our Story, and I clearly have mine. I've spent the last week going deeper than most can imagine in order to unlock and unpick the root source of what's not been working for me. It's taken courage and compassion with myself to 'go there', but as you may have guessed, I'm not one to let fear of what I might find stop me.
First I logged every incident I can remember in my life where 'bad luck' threw a spanner in the works. Then I started to ask some big questions as to why they happened, and what the benefits of doing that may have been. I went into difficult times in my childhood, through my young and teen years, through my 20's and 30s and can say it's quite a thing to look at every key failure, issue, challenge, etc all mapped out on one giant time line. It hurt. All the times where I was a victim. All the times where I fell short. All the times where I made a bad choice. All the moments of guilt and shame through my life, laid out across pages and pages of writing.
I had truly put myself to the sword. And could see more clearly the 'story I was telling' in my life to the world, and where that had come from. As a result of this, I reached out to a world-class performance coach and therapist who I'm working through this now with, to work through to the root cause. And I've now identified what it is... My belief forged through when I was little that 'I am not good enough'. That my self-sabotage kept me safe by giving me a 'conqueror of adversity story' if I achieved success, or a 'victim' story to tell if I failed.
I'm not going to be too specific here, but there are a couple of pivotal moments when I was a child that established this. It's quite upsetting to realise, that for most of my childhood I actually felt unsafe on a deep level. My parents did their best with what they knew at the time but my unconscious (which rules us and our actions) interpreted this very negatively. Despite all of the challenges I put in my way to overcome; despite all of the high achievement in my life; and despite talent that I have in many things, I've been living with the handbrake on. This is why last week hurt so much. It was the final straw and now it is time to change the story I tell in my life, and live more of what's possible. There is a lot of work I need to do to work through this stuff, but I am compelled to go through the crucible in order to come out different the other side. That in itself is daunting. There's a lot of fear around risk of loss when we change, but this is my life. It's my wellbeing and mental health that i have to put first and now i am taking the steps to do so. I KNOW that this changes everything. My 300k, my work, my relationship, my family. Everything changes as I go through this because I change. I'd like to think for the better. That to go through my own transformation gives permission to others to be more of who they really are, over their own stories that have got in their way. We shall see.
Who would have thought that setting a big hairy audacious goal such as running 100 then 300k would take me to the edge of everything that I am. But I guess it's a case of 'go big or go home' right?
Thanks for reading.
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